Google has sent out a survey to establish users satisfaction with Wear OS. As reported by 9to5Google this is a rather general survey trying to assess user happiness with the product.
This could be seen as rather coincidental timing given Google completed the acquisition of FitBit this week. Some might interpret this survey as having something to do with the acquisition. However, the more likely explanation is that this is lucky timing.
The acquisition of Fitbit was not a simple one for Google. Although the deal appeared in place for months now but ground to a halt due to antitrust and data use investigations. This resulted in a $400 million fine from Australian regulators. However, this could not stop the deal from going through.
Google appears to try and gain an overall assessment of what users think of the Wear OS. Users received a notification saying “Help us improve Wear OS by Google?” When opened it showed a survey for users to fill in.
Google sends out Wear OS satisfaction survey
The question on the survey simply read “Overall, how satisfied are you with your smartwatch?” It provided users with five options ranging from ‘very satisfied to very dissatisfied’.
Users with the dark theme enabled did face an issue in reading the survey. Due to the fact that the black text appeared against a gray background rendering it difficult to read. However, users could quickly fix this by simply turning off dark mode.
Google often uses customer surveys to leverage user feedback. In turn the company uses this feedback and other metrics to shape their products.
The timing of the Fitbit acquisition is most likely a coincidence. This is because around this time last year Google User Experience Research program sent out a survey. It focussed on what health features interested users to help with prioritising development projects.
Overall, this was not a massively illuminating survey given it only included the one very generic question. We can often glean a lot from surveys depending on the questions asked. However, in this case, all we can assume is that Google wanted to gain an overall sense of users satisfaction with the Wear OS.
With the Fitbit acquisition completed it is possible the company wanted to use this survey to help to understand where its products sat in terms of users satisfaction. However, it is difficult to tell what if anything Google has planned for the Wear OS from this survey.